1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a vehicle side airbag apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2004-291845 (JP-A-2004-291845) describes a vehicle side airbag apparatus in which the thickness of the portion of the side airbag that is deployed to cover the part of the occupant's body from his or her shoulder or its proximal portion to his or her abdomen or its proximal portion to protect the chest of the occupant is smaller than the thickness of the portion of the side airbag that is deployed to protect the shoulder of the occupant or its proximal portion.
However, this vehicle side airbag apparatus involves the following problem. Because the collarbone of a human being is slanted upward from the breastbone to the shoulder (scapula), there is a possibility that the shoulder of the occupant P would move upward when it contacts the side airbag 3 as shown in FIG. 9. When the shoulder of the occupant P moves upward, the side airbag 3 moves downward in turn (the side airbag 3 moves to where the clearance between the occupant P and the door D in the lateral direction of the vehicle is large) and therefore the side airbag 3 may fail to restrain the shoulder of the occupant P sufficiently.